“Xtend” soy and cotton are designed for use with the drift-prone herbicide dicamba. In just the second year of planting, dicamba use has already dramatically increased — exposing the non-GE crops in neighboring fields to damaging herbicide drift.

When the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) gave dicamba-resistant crops the greenlight two years ago, scientists and farmers warned that pesticide drift would be a serious problem. And it is.

Dicamba is particularly harmful to broadleaf plants like fruit, nuts, vegetables and soy. So far this month, farmers in Arkansas are being hit the hardest, with more than 420 official reports of dicamba crop damage on the books. In fact, the problem is so severe that the state is working to enact an emergency ban for this herbicide.

Farmers in Missouri and Tennessee are also starting to see serious damage, with reported drift incidents likely to increase as their seasons come into full swing.